Exam boards: Michael Gove orders inquiry over cheating revelations

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has called for a fundamental reform of
the exams system after an investigation disclosed that exam boards gave
teachers secret advice on how to improve their GCSE and A-level results.

It found teachers are paying up to £230 a day to attend seminars with chief examiners during which they are advised on exam questions and the exact wording that pupils should use to obtain higher marks.

The advice appears to go far beyond the standard “guidance” and opens exam boards to accusations that they are undermining the purpose of exam syllabuses by encouraging “teaching to the test”.

After being presented with details of The Daily Telegraph’s investigation, Mr Gove demanded Ofqual, the exam regulator, must report back with its findings before Christmas.

Two examiners have been suspended by the exam board WJEC, although it insists the claims were due to a misunderstanding of its advice.

In a statement, the Education Secretary said: “Our exams system needs fundamental reform. The revelations confirm that the current system is discredited.

“I have asked Glenys Stacey [the chief executive of Ofqual] to investigate the specific concerns identified by the Telegraph, to examine every aspect of the exam boards’ conduct which gives rise to concern and to report back to me within two weeks with her conclusions and recommendations for further action.

“As I have always maintained, it is crucial our exams hold their own with the best in the world. We will take whatever action is necessary to restore faith in our exam system. Nothing is off the table.”

One chief examiner has been secretly recorded by this newspaper telling teachers which questions their pupils could expect in the next round of exams.

“We’re cheating,” he says. “We’re telling you the cycle [of the compulsory question]. Probably the regulator will tell us off.”

He advised teachers that he was telling them how to “hammer exam technique” rather than the approach of “proper educationalists” to “teach the lot”.

In the wake of this newspaper's disclosures, Geoff Lucas, the former assistant chief executive for the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA), Ofqual’s predecessor, said the examiners appeared “damned by their own words”.

He said: “There is a line between guiding teachers about a topic and telling, giving them more than hints, clear steers, about what will be in the test.”

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education and former head teacher, said: “It is cheating … sadly for those in the profession it won’t come as a surprise… behind closed doors, few doubt there has been a dumbing down of standards and that practices are corrupt.”

Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said: "These allegations are extremely serious and go to the heart of a fair system of examinations. The investigation by Ofqual must leave no stone unturned.

"Parents rightly expect that their children are taking tests on a level playing field with others. The Government must act quickly and decisively to ensure faith in A-levels and GCSEs."

Are you a teacher or examiner with concerns over workings of exam boards? Please email your experiences toexamboards@telegraph.co.uk

The disclosures will add to growing fears over the apparent “dumbing down” of standards in British schools which has led to grade inflation in exams over the past decade.

The investigation has exposed a system in which exam boards aggressively compete with one another to win “business” from schools.

Evidence that standards of exams have been deliberately driven down to encourage schools to sign up for them has also been uncovered.

The disclosures will add to fears that those offering to help teachers obtain the highest grades will make higher revenues as their tests become more popular. Exam marks have reached new records during each of the past 23 years as the system has become increasingly commercialised.

The chief executive of Ofqual announced a full investigation was required following the revelations.

Glenys Stacey said the regulator would be “looking in detail at just these possible conflicts of interests in the provision of qualifications.”

And she outlined a number of sanctions available to Ofqual including pulling “examinations set for January and for next summer with awarding bodies providing substitute scripts”.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that ministers flagged up their concerns to Ofqual last week that competition between exam boards may be fuelling the “race to the bottom” for exam standards.

In England there are three main exam boards offering GCSEs and A-levels — OCR, AQA and Edexcel. However in recent years the Welsh exam board, WJEC, has started to become more popular.

A series of secretive exam seminars, which are thought to have rapidly grown in popularity in recent years, are suspected of being at the centre of concerns over the system.

Detailed information is also provided to teachers on official websites and other literature, including formally endorsed text books produced by exam boards which has proliferated in recent years.

Undercover reporters from this newspaper went to 13 meetings organised by boards used by English schools and found that teachers were routinely given information about future questions, areas of the syllabus that would be assessed and specific words or facts students must use to answer in questions to win marks.

The seminars were usually held in hotels and cost between £120 to £230. Each one is typically attended by at least 20 teachers, but sometimes as many as 100.

At a WJEC course in London for GCSE history last month, teachers were told by Paul Evans, one of the chief examiners of the course, that the compulsory question for section A of the exam “goes through a cycle”.

“This coming summer, and there’s a slide on this later on, it’s going to be the middle bit: 'Life in Germany 1933-39’ or for America, it will be 'Rise and Fall of the American Economy’ … So if you know what the compulsory section is you know you’ve got to teach that.” When a teacher pointed out that they had

been told to teach the entire syllabus, choice, as opposed to us saying 'Right you’ve got to teach everything’.

“We’re cheating, we’re telling you the cycle.”

When one of his colleagues said this information was not in the course specification, Mr Evans said: “No, because we’re not allowed to tell you.”

WJEC literature on the website also appears to advise teachers that they need not teach the full syllabus and points out which sections will be examined each year.

When one of Mr Evans’s colleagues, Paul Barnes, was asked by a teacher if he had understood correctly that Mr Barnes was saying they would not be asked a question on Iraq or Iran next year, he replied: “Off the record, yes.”

Gareth Pierce, chief executive of the WJEC exam board, said today it had begun its own inquiry into the alelgations, which is expected to be completed in the next 48 hours.

He said the board needed to determine whether the language heard in the seminars recorded by the newspaper was "appropriate and acceptable within the terms of the event".

Mr Pierce said the inquiry was looking at a range of issues - "issues to do with the examiners themselves, whether they will be able to fulfil future roles, issues to do with future assessment, their integrity and fairness".

In November, an undercover reporter attended the AQA GCSE English seminar in Brighton. Teachers were told by Liz Hey, the subject manager for the English qualifications, that students could study only three out of 15 poems, even though she said the governing body [Qualification and Curriculum Authority] state it should be 15.

Steph Warren, the chief examiner for Edexcel in geography, also gave teachers guidance on what questions students were likely to find in examinations.

Spending on exam fees has almost doubled in seven years, from £154 million in 2002-03 to £302.6 million in 2009-10. Schools claim they have to employ two exam officers to deal with the paperwork as they try to “play the system”.

Last night, the exam boards defended the probity of their exams but promised to investigate if examiners had broken the rules.

A spokesman for WJEC said: “The advice given in this particular context, relating to nine studies in depth and three thematic studies, is clearly set out in the GCSE History Teachers’ Guide. The examiner at the training course attended by a Telegraph reporter was confirming long-standing guidance on this subject.

“The alleged use of the word 'cheating’ appears to have been injudicious, as well as inaccurate; we shall investigate this further.”

A spokesman for Edexcel said: “Edexcel, like all awarding bodies, is expected to run feedback events by the regulator Ofqual, who have attended a number of these events this year. These sessions are designed to give useful feedback to teachers and are retrospective on the previous year’s examinations.

“Examiners’ contracts specifically state that no discussion of the content of future exam questions should ever take place. Any breach of this clear contractual obligation is something we would take extremely seriously and act on.”